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Karatek
Karatek was an ancient Vulcan who lived during the age of Surak and served as the reluctant leader of the Vulcan convoy that left their homeworld during their civil wars to continue their civilization within the stars. He recorded his journeys in a Coronet, and his daughter Sarissa was the leader of the Reman escapees who formed the Watraii civilization. He was once a physicist of the Vulcan Science Academy before the 'exile'. History Early Life He entered the Vulcan Science Academy and was assigned as an engineer in the Vulcan Space Institute which was building ships capable of traveling through the sea of stars. He would serve the institute under the watchful eye of T'Kehr Torin. Disciple of Surak While one day standing at the gates of his native city of ShiKahr when he encountered the philosopher Surak along with two of his followers. While the logic abiding Vulcans were detained by security, Karatek bestowed the invitation of the travelers being his 'guest-friends'. During this time, he would see a certain wisdom in Surak who preached that the Vulcan species were heading for destruction unless they changed their ways. However, sensing the possibility that this might not be the case, he offered the suggestion that a group of Vulcans must leave the Mother World and continue their way of life on another world deep in the stars. Fascinated by the idea, Karatek brought Surak to the high ranking members of the Vulcan Space Institute. The two would work to convince the other members of the institute that the possibility of extinction was very real and possible and that a journey across the stars would ensure their survival. He would succeed in this task and work on the engines of the ships that were being constructed. However, before actual work could start, Karatek would journey with Surak and his two followers to Mount Seleya to consult with the Adepts there to convince them to aid them in their task. The journey would harden Karatek and he would encounter an outpost where he would meet the two orphaned children Tu'Pari and Kovar. Seeing the tragedy that the two had suffered, Karatek would adopt the two into his household as his children. They would continue their journey to Seleya where the adepts would refuse to leave the Mother World. Instead, they would give the Coronet to Surak to record history and return in the future should the planet Vulcan survive. He would return to the Institute to begin work on the ships and would find his life under threat by assassins from factions who wished to stop the project. This would ultimately be unsuccessful and Karatek would continue to work which included the construction of Vulcan Station. ( }}) The Exile It took many years but the Great Ships were completed along with Vulcan Station despite the wars that raged on the Vulcan homeworld. However, tragedy struck when a large attack, waged by various factions opposed to Vulcans leaving the Mother World, came to bear on the Vulcan Space Initiative. Vulcan's Station was destroyed and many lives were lost. In the midst of this chaos, Karatek managed to reach a shuttle that took him and members of his family to the starship Shavokh. Surak himself was incapable of making the trip and trusted the Coronet to Karatek to record the journey and that, one day, his descendants would return it to Vulcan. Further mayhem arrived when Karatek's son, Turak, and his family were incapable of reaching the shuttles. While his mentor, Torin, was killed in the battle. The fleets encountered many tragedies in the depths of space. This included the accidental destruction of seven ships when they were testing a new engine though Karatek suggested the possibility that some may have survived but were lost to them. In addition to this, various pirate raids and internal dissent from those born in space and the te-vikram added to the despair. The fleet had encountered a single habitable Minshara class world on their journey but it was populated by a primitive yet intelligent life form and so it was decided by the fleet's council that it be left alone as the Vulcan's might harm the species. However, this was not the only encounter with alien life for the fleet encountered the alien race known as the Providers who abducted an expedition team for sport. Karatek saw them rescued by the elder Rovalat but the event saw the old Vulcan die as a result. More sinister entities lay ahead which caused the destruction of two of the generation ships and the consumption of their crews very souls. In addition to this, a final revolt from a large number of Vulcan's nearly doomed the fleets and cost the life of Karatek son Lovar and one of his best friends as well as closest ally. Incidentally, the event also led to the damage in food resources and the population decline nearly meant that the exile would end only in death. But finally it seemed that Karatek's long search for a new homeworld provided results as the fleets approached a system capable of supporting their civilization. These would be the twin worlds named after the ancient mythology of twin god brothers, different yet united. These worlds would eventually be known as Romulus and Remus. Despite finding this new world to live upon, debate and arguments broke around who would get the various lands on the habitable world and who would be forced to work in the barren wastelands of the harsher twin world. As a compromise, Karatek volunteered his house and his allies who all followed the discipline of Surak as they were more capable of resisting the effects of zenite compared to the emotional members of their race. After securing a base on the planet and building an extensive underground base, Karatek and his people were betrayed by Avarak who was the leading member of the technocrats of the fleet. Avarak, seeking power over his enemies, made the ultimatum that Karatek should submit to his control. To accomplish this, he destroyed the landing location and communication array of the base preventing the base personnel from calling for aid from the rest of their kind. Finally, Avarak demanded ore supplies from the base in exchange for vital medical supplies and food while they continued their work on the planet. Cut off from support and forced to submit before the brutal Vulcan, Karatek had become trapped in a newer exile despite all the hardship he endured in the journey across space. The Second Exile Karatek and his people along with those who accepted the hardship to work on Remus - such as one clan of te-Vikram - worked together to survive in their new harsh environment now that they had become effectively slaves and denied their homeworld. They would quickly reinforce the mines they worked and produced a shift based work pattern so that their quota would be fulfilled. However, they worked in excess in order to produce surplus ore so that Karatek could work on a starship that would allow them to escape their prison in secret. Karatek would witness many things during this part of his life which included the transformation of Refas who went out into the ice to die but returned mutated by the extremophiles that lived on Remus's surface. He would see the growing rift between his daughter-in-law T'Orlyn and his son Solor over the fate of their race. The former wished to genetically engineer the next generation to survive on the harsh world and used her own genetic material and combined it with Refas to produce offspring. Karatek would also see the depth of the cruelty of his kind on Romulus who sent criminals, political prisoners and those who voiced against their rulers as slave workers on Remus. After Solor broke his marriage with T'Olryn for what she had done, Karatek would attempt to help his son by allowing him to complete a journey across the surface of Remus to the twilight band of the planet where his son speculated that they could possibly live on the surface in that region of the planet. This would be a long journey which would prove fruitless as the hostile nature of Remus prevented a suitable settlement there and nearly cost Solor his life but allowed him to re-invent the kahs-wan. Solor would soon despair when his son escaped Remus in the prototype ship and attempt to reason with their Romulan cousins. A shuttle from their oppressors would arrive and take Karatek with his wife, T'Vysse, to meet with S'task as his guest friends. When they arrived, they learnt that S'task had not betrayed them but was instead left powerless and nothing more then a figurehead as the real power was within the hands of T'Rehu. He would also see that S'task had managed to save his son from T'Rehu's interrogators, however, the damage was too severe. They managed to take Solor back to Remus where he soon died. The next couple of months would be even harder for Karatek and his people as their oppressors sent slavemasters and armed guards to watch over their slaves. He would also learn that S'task had been murdered on Romulus by the actions of T'Rehu. The new prison guards would also confiscate Karatek's prototype ships to deny them the possibility to escape. Karatek would also watch the genesis of the Reman species who lived a shadow life on their world. Tragedy would strike Karatek, however, when T'Vysse died during a prison riot when the guards had captured a Reman and attempted to kill their slave. T'Vysse would sacrifice herself to allow the young Reman to escape. This shattered Karatek's faith and he renounced his belief in Surak and retreated into his own life; pain and loss having taken control over him. His only child, Sarissa and her consort Serevan would be all that is left of his family. He would hear of Sarissa's plan to escape on a cargo ship that they would modify to leave their prison with those who wished to find a new life else where. Karatek would reluctantly agree and the opportunity arose at the time when T'Rehu died and various factions fought each other on Romulus. Karateks final days would arrive during their attempt to leave the world when guards threatened to end the escape before it would even happen. His daughter would attempt to hold them back but Karatek decided to make the final sacrifice by allowing his daughter to escape. He would use the Coronet as a weapon to delay his oppressors one last time before he died which allowed his daughter and the escapees to leave the prison world to begin life elsewhere. Karatek's katra would be embedded within the Coronet until generations later, Spock of Vulcan would take Karatek's essence back to Mount Seleya where he released the mind from its burdens. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Soul Epiphany) Personal Life Personality Karatek had never fully embraced the teachings of Surak which showed as he had an odd mixture of reverting to emotional outbursts while other times he remained completely logical. Family Karatek suffered from the effects of Pon Farr which was much deadlier to the Vulcan people before the belief in logic. During this time, he met the woman that would be his mate through the ages, a woman known as T'Vysse. During his marriage, he had three children which included two sons and a daughter. Sadly, his daughter died very early in her life leaving with him the eldest son Turak and a young boy Lovar. During his travels to Mount Seleya with Surak and his two followers, they encountered a way station in the desert that had been attacked by members of the te-Vikram brotherhood. In the ruins, they discovered a young boy known as Kovar and his sister Tu'Pari whose parents had been murdered by the raiders. After much thought, Karatek decided to adopt the two children into his house. Upon joining Karatek's house, Tu'Pari took on the name Sarissa. During his journey in space on the Great Ships, happiness blessed Karateks life when his wife gave birth to another daughter. Sadly, the spread of lunglock fever and the poor conditions on the ships meant that this child would also be taken from him. He had a daughter-in-law in the form of T'Orlyn who was a healer on the Shavokh (starship) and married to his son Kovar. Legacy One of the greatest achievements of the engineer was the creation of the engines of the mighty ships that would bear his family to the stars. Despite that, there were many tragedies as he saw the survivors die one by one in space. Either through internal conflict, navigational errors or through the attacks of alien entities. However, even through all the hardship, Karatek continued the task that Surak gave him which was to 'remember' all these events and store them into the Coronet. Karatek continued this task, burning his memory of events into the device and hoped that one day his descendants would take the device back to Vulcan if it had survived. (Star Trek novel: Vulcan's Soul trilogy) Category:Vulcans